Book 5: 《公冶長》 Gong Ye Chang
《公冶長》 Passage 5.14
Legge Translation (1861)
When Zilu heard anything, if he had not yet succeeded in carrying it into practice, he was only afraid lest he should hear something else.Word by word
- 子路 zǐ lù
Zilu, courtesy name of the disciple Zhong You
- 子 prefix of a courtesy name, as in 子路 and 子貢; not the title Master
- 路 Lu, courtesy-name element in 子路, the courtesy name of Zhong You (仲由); his given name is 由
One of Confucius's prominent disciples, known for courage and directness.
- 有聞 yǒu wén
to hear something, come to hear of something
- 有 auxiliary marking an indefinite experienced event: to have (done)
- 聞 to hear, come to hear of something
Slingerland and Ames & Rosemont render 聞 as 'learn' rather than 'hear', treating it as receiving moral instruction rather than mere hearsay.
- 未 wèi
not yet
- 之 zhī
object pronoun: it, referring to what he had heard
Fronted before the modal 能 because the clause is negated — the regular word-order rule for pronominal objects under negation.
- 能 néng
to be able to, can
- 行 xíng
to practice, put into action, carry out
- 唯恐 wéi kǒng
only feared, was afraid only that
- 唯 only, solely
- 恐 to fear, be afraid, worry
- 有聞 yòu wén
to hear again, hear something further
- 有 to have, there being (something further heard) — The sense of again or further comes from the context (朱熹: 恐復有所聞), not from the graph; some read 有 as a loan for 又, but the standard commentaries keep it as the same verb as in the first 有聞.
- 聞 to hear, come to hear of something further
有 here is a loan for 又 (yòu), 'again'; translators differ on whether the referent is the same report repeated (Roberts) or new, further news (the rest).
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